The increase of the population in the German Empire alone amounts yearly to a million souls, and these have, to a large extent, found remunerative industrial occupation.
There is, however, a reverse side to this picture of splendid development.

We are absolutely dependent on foreign countries for the import of raw materials, and to a considerable extent also for the sale of our own manufactures.

We even obtain a part of our necessaries of life from abroad.

Then, again, we have not the assured markets which England possesses in her colonies.

Our own colonies are unable to take much of our products, and the great foreign economic spheres try to close their doors to outsiders, especially Germans, in order to encourage their own industries, and to make themselves independent of other countries.